


au revoir

by justalittlegreen



Series: Sunshine and Filth [25]
Category: MASH (1970), MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, Letters, goodbye farewell and amen, hunnihawk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 11:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16722168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justalittlegreen/pseuds/justalittlegreen
Summary: Over the events of Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.





	au revoir

BJ  _knows_ he's going to see Hawkeye again, even if that infuriating disbeliever can't believe it himself. It's just too impossible not to, what with the existence of telephones and cars and maps. Sometimes he wonders how Hawkeye can tell himself that once they leave Korea they'll never speak again. The whole idea is ridiculous.  _That's_ why he didn't say goodbye. It has nothing to do with the idea that seeing Hawkeye wrecked to a shadow of himself would make BJ feel like dying.  
  
Of course they'll see each other again.

What's  _not_ ridiculous is the simultaneous rage and unexpected joy of being told - halfway home - that he's turning back around.  _Second chances_ , he thinks - the words blooming in his mind in a voice not unlike Father Mulcahey's - at the same time as he thinks  _second birthday_ \- and the thought of Peggy pulling through another of Erin's birthdays without him nearly brings him to tears on the spot. So he boards the plane back to Korea with the barest of polite smiles to the corporal who inspects his orders and comments, "Did I just see you heading the other way?"  
  
Home is Mill Valley, and sunshine and Peg - home is Erin and clean sheets and quiet. So much quiet.

Home is Hawkeye, and shadows - home is filth on the edge of horror. Home is whatever light they can make.

And so BJ finds himself in Kimpo once more, Class A's a little worse for the wear, hitching a ride back that is nowhere near as eventful as his first. He's got another chance.

**

Peggy is at the bakery, because what else does one do when one's heart breaks right before a birthday party? Her parents are in town, anticipating the birthday and BJ's return - they had promised to take Erin for a night after BJ came home. When the news came that he was heading back, Peg hung the phone up carefully, told her parents calmly that his orders had changed, and that she was going to change her clothes before running her errands. Her mother came halfway up the stairs behind her, but Peg was already halfway down the hall, running and stifling her sobs into her fist.  
  
A long cry later, she felt her mother slip into her bedroom, sit on the edge of the bed, and rub her back. She hadn't done that since Peggy was in high school, a whole world and many heartbreaks away. Peggy rolled over and recognized the look on her mother's face: worry. love. and something underneath, her own private pain, an echo of something she must have felt when Peggy's father was in France during The Great War. She understands.   
  
And so Peggy makes it to the bakery, brings home the white box tied with striped red string. She opens it at the table and gasps, just now remembering that she'd ordered it with two inscriptions:  
  
 _Happy Birthday Erin!_

_&_

_Welcome Home, Daddy!_

The tears come again, instantly, and once more, Peg's mother is there, looking over her shoulder, giving a small, "Oh, dear, my dear. Let's take care of that, shall we, Peglet?"  
  
Peg hits a fresh wave of sobs, for the old nickname and the wish that her mother could fix anything. Ma heads over with a butter knife, a bag of powdered sugar and a sieve, and together, they smooth the icing over and dust the cake with a fresh coat of powder.

**

BJ resumes writing to Peg as soon as he reaches Uijeongbu. He fumes at the unfairness of missing them, of having gotten so close - the arbitrary, practical cruelty of Army life. He tries not to complain too much; it's got to be at least as hard on her as it is on him, maybe more.  
  
**  
  
The letters start coming again a week after Erin's party. Peg receives them with a kind of anguish, tinged with resignation. There is no end in sight, no matter what the paper say. She resumes the rituals with Erin she'd allowed to fall slack in the weeks leading up to BJ's traveling home - writing every morning, with Erin, now perched on a telephone book on a chair at the table instead of in a high chair - showing her the pictures of BJ in and out of uniform, telling her about her daddy, singing the songs BJ used to sing with her - rebuilding the paths they'd walked without him, paths they'd so gleefully abandoned when they heard he was coming home.

The letters are full of Hawkeye - news of his progress, how glad BJ is to see him, ruminations on when he might be sent home, too. The details on Hawkeye's condition are vaguely sketched out - Peg knows something bad happened, but that Hawkeye wasn't physically hurt. After all these months, she's not surprised the war took him down for awhile.   
  
The surprise is how much she aches about it.   
  
She finds herself writing things she's never told BJ before - how glad she is that he can be there for Hawkeye, how it must have hurt him to not be able to say goodbye (which he mentioned in passing, but she can tell the way the pencil's groove gets heavier how much that must have mattered.) She even offers a smattering of her own well wishes.

_Tell Hawkeye I said I'm glad you're with him. That I owe him that much for all this time he's kept you whole and sane. And I do hope he's feeling better now that you're together._

She wonders what he'll make of that. Either of them.

This much is true: in all the time she's been imagining Hawkeye Pierce, he's never seemed quite this small in her mind. Or frightened. Or hurt. He's always been a gregarious bray, expansive, intrusive, hungry - greedy, even. This Hawkeye - this wounded man - feels like someone she hasn't yet met. Someone who is every bit as human as the man he says he loves.

Perhaps it's the man BJ's known and loved all along.


End file.
